


It's Just a Jump to the Left (And Then a Step to the Right)

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Farah Black is very done, M/M, Pre-Slash, Robin Hood References, The Romans, Time Travel, Todd Brotzman POV, Todd Brotzman is Bad at Feelings, Vikings, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: Despite not having put their hands on their hips, brought their knees in tightorengaged in any pelvic thrusting (much to Todd's disappointment), Dirk and Todd are doing the time warp again. And again. And by 'time warp', they mean 'getting randomly dumped in various time periods without so much as a "by your leave"'. Time travel is surprisingly rude, that way.
Relationships: Todd Brotzman/Dirk Gently
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42
Collections: DGHDA Valentine's Mini Bang 2020





	It's Just a Jump to the Left (And Then a Step to the Right)

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: 'Go Home, Butterfly, You are Drunk'
> 
> My entry for the DGHDA Valentine's Mini Bang! It's one of those concepts that got...kind of out of hand. As in 'I just want time-travel shenanigans' and then this happened.
> 
> Massive thanks to [marizetta](https://marizetta.tumblr.com/)for her art (GO LOOK AT IT! GIVE IT PRAISE!), as well as[dont-offend-the-bees](https://dont-offend-the-bees.tumblr.com/) for organising (amazing as ever) and [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame) for specifically organising me XD

Todd has tripped over his heavily-improvised toga four times in the last ten minutes, and he was sitting down for half of that. No fucking wonder Amanda hates dresses.

"Why," he growls, "would anybody choose to wear these?"

Dirk makes what is probably supposed to be a considering face. It looks like what he is considering is what sort of face to make in order to make someone think that he is considering a question. Todd hates that he recognises this. "I find them very freeing, actually. You just have to walk right, you see?" And he demonstrates, with more hand on hip action than warranted in Todd’s opinion. 

"This is ridiculous," Todd says, instead of allowing any comments about Dirk's hips to leave his mouth. "Can't we just hide somewhere until we hop again?"

" _Travel_ , Todd," Dirk reminds him. "It's not really time-travel if we don't look around, is it? They don't call it time-sitting-in-the-hotel, or time-reading-a-good-book, or – "

"How many of these do you have, exactly?"

"I don't really know. I was rather looking forward to finding out."

Tugging at the end of the sheet wrapped around his body like a punishment (possibly the hem, that sounds like a clothing word), Todd wishes they could do the time-travel thing like in the movies, walking around in jeans and getting potentially worshipped. He hasn’t mentioned this to Dirk, since it sounds an awful lot like ‘I want to get worshipped’, which isn’t exactly encouraging to hear from a recovering asshole. Still, the alternative is remembering he’s bound up in a shower curtain.

Supposedly the universe must have provided these things – that’s usually the case when Dirk stumbles on exactly what he needs, especially when it comes to ‘fashion’ – only frankly Todd thinks this is more Dirk seeing some sheets and _deciding_ to do the whole historical cosplay thing. Thank fuck he hadn't tried it in Egypt. Todd does not need to show up back in the office shirtless and in a skirt.

" **Salve** ," he hears, followed by a whole lot of syllables he understands even less. Looking up from his attempt at what you could only optimistically call a 'toga', Todd sees a man with a hand on Dirk's shoulder who is, for want of a better word, _leering_ at him. The kind of leering that a fratboy would be proud of.

"Oh, um," Dirk says, which is encouraging in that he's not instantly swooning. Todd isn't sure what Dirk's taste is in people exactly but that doesn't stop him worrying when someone is so blatantly flirting with him. "Yes. That's – Sorry, do you speak English?"

The man looks at him blankly, albeit in a way that still radiates ‘my bunk is in the nearest villa’.

"Right, I suppose that might be too much to ask for, not really sure when English is a thing."

Todd doesn't know the answer to that either. What he does know is that body language is fairly universal, even in their insane lives, so he makes a point of strutting up next to Dirk (as best he can while not tripping over his clothes) and stopping inside the usual realms of personal space, which is about where Dirk stands near him most of the time. He locks eyes with Roman Man (ManMan? Mans? Bad Roman-ce?) and lifts his chin. It helps that apparently people in the past are more his sort of height. It makes Dirk stick out even worse than usual; still, at least Todd is pretty confident he can headbutt someone if necessary. (It's usually necessary.)

The man backs off with a smirk Todd understands completely and fervently hopes Dirk doesn't understand in the least. He suggests, " **Tres?** " with a shrug. Fortunately, Todd is too mad to act too surprised at actually recognising a word.

"No," Todd says, "no fucking tres. No," he adds for good measure, towing Dirk away by the back of his toga. Turns out they do have their uses.

"Do you understand Latin, Todd?" Dirk asks, and for fuck's sake he actually sounds serious.

"I understand asshole," Todd tells him. "Also, history is a lot gayer than they said in school." Case in point: the two ladies making out against the side of a giant marble building with columns and steps which looks like it escaped from D.C.

Dirk sighs happily. "I know, it's rather lovely, isn't it?"

"They're not going to let you dye your toga rainbow, you know."

"We'll see, won't we?"

"Listen," Todd says, reaching out to grab Dirk by the front of his toga again, when the whole of Ancient Rome tips sideways, pixelises, and swirls away down the cosmic toilet.

\---

"Hope we're not interrupting," Farah's voice says drily.

Carefully, Todd lets go. Much less carefully, he starts to fight his way out of feet upon feet of ridiculous material.

"Where to this time?"

"Rome, I think," Dirk says. "Or somewhere Latin-y, anyway."

"Okay," Farah says, nodding in a way which Todd is very relieved to recognise as code for 'this is very much not okay'. "Rome. That's – Well, I suppose you didn't stand out as much as in Egypt."

"That is true," Dirk says. Todd really hopes Dirk realises Farah means for the _really obvious_ reasons and not something more Dirk-like.

"Didn't mean you had to go wandering off," Todd announces to his fabric prison.

"It's all fine, Todd, we're back now."

"Doesn't mean you knew that would happen," Todd mutters. There's a spot which looks like blessed tepid office light and he goes for it. Ending up on the floor isn’t ideal and he never needs to witness Farah's pitying expression (he could probably draw it from memory now, if, you know, he could draw), but at least he can see and he’s no longer a prisoner of Dirk’s fashion choices.

After just looking at him for a moment, Farah turns away to focus on their agency mindmapping toolkit – a really fancy way of describing a whiteboard and a pen that sometimes works and is sometimes Mona. Given that said pen squeaks in a very literal sense when Farah starts to write this time, it's the latter, in a useful enough mood for the ink on the board to be a color that doesn’t burn itself into your eyeballs.

"So that's Egypt and Rome," Farah says under her breath, drawing a line with the names underneath and then scowling at it. "I'm guessing you don't know when exactly?"

"They had togas," Dirk says. "And a very confident approach to propositioning people. Refreshing, if not reciprocated."

"I fucking knew you knew," Todd says. He did not. That's not the point.

Farah frowns at Dirk, which makes Todd feel vindicated even though he knows she’s just ignoring him. "That's not actually very helpful for pinpointing a year. Or a century, for that matter. Wait." She taps the pen against the whiteboard, deep in thought, then offers a quick apology when it squeaks again. "Right, where did it look like you were? Because togas weren't standard fashion throughout that period, so if it looked like a more casual setting or somewhere like the Senate or..." She trails off, looking at them. "You don't know, do you?"

"Honestly?" Todd says. "If our other option is Egypt, I don't know whether this qualifies as a fine detail sort of thing."

"Ancient Egypt covers a period of several millennia, Todd. That's a very large window."

Todd didn’t know that. There’s no way he’ll admit it, though. "Shouldn't we be more worried about _why_ this is happening? I mean, I know nobody's hired us, but this still seems like a case sort of thing."

Dirk somehow aligns his mouth into a perfect diagonal. "Technically there hasn't been a crime, Todd."

"We got kidnapped! Technically." Not that Todd likes referring to himself as a 'kid'. How come there's no adult version of that word? It seems like something they need – 'they' being the agency, specifically, yet also the world as a whole. Kind of patronising, when you think about it. Adults can get stolen just as easily as kids, based on the last year of Todd's experience.

" _Technically_ , Todd," Dirk says, as if there's ever any call for British sarcasm, "whoever 'they' are and whatever 'their' intentions, 'they' put us right back where 'they' found us, so 'they' haven't actually committed any ‘crime’." With every unjustified use of quotation marks, Todd's teeth grit a little tighter. There are a whole lot of things Dirk’s not good for when it comes to Todd's body (constant sexual frustration and the risk of permanent death coming in at the top of the list), and increasingly that includes dental issues. Shit, does Dirk even know what a dental plan _is_? Farah must do. Isn't Farah actually in charge of that stuff? Hopefully it's not Todd. That would be a terrible idea. He has enough trouble wrangling Dirk without facing off against state and/or federal bureaucracy (including trying to remember which is which).

Instead of giving voice to any of this, Todd says, "I think grabbing someone out of their time still isn't good behavior."

"Perhaps they mean it in a nice way," Dirk says, with all the self-righteous holier-than-thou one-upmanship you might expect from a government science lab escapee.

Todd tries to involve Farah again, as the actual sensible sane one, by giving her a disbelieving look which strains both his eye and mouth muscles. The effort’s wasted: she's focusing on the whiteboard and muttering (either to herself or to Mona).

"I need a drink," he announces.

"I don't recommend leaving the office for now," Farah tells the whiteboard. Given that Todd knows that Mona is currently the pen in Farah's hand and also given that Todd knows that Mona prefers to only be one thing at a time (thanks to easily the most words Mona has ever said, apropos of nothing and equally doing nothing to make her sound less like a horror movie trope), he's guessing that Farah is actually talking to him. It's not being selfish or self-centred or egotistical if he can show his work.

"Why not?"

"Because both times you've vanished from here, together, and this time you came back with togas." She pauses. "Which hopefully aren't carrying any plagues."

Todd flails back from his former toga and falls over the table leg.

"I'm not an expert in plagues," Dirk says, "but wouldn't we already have it?"

"All the more reason not to go out," she says. "Besides potentially vanishing and then reappearing in front of a lot of people who ask questions." Dirk opens his mouth, and Farah says, "You are not good at questions, Dirk."

"I'm great at questions. I ask them all the time. I am an _expert_ in questions, and sometimes I even answer them. In fact, you could argue that is literally my job: answering questions. People pay me in a question-asking-and-answering capacity."

"What people?" Todd asks suspiciously.

"Clients, obviously. We are a _business_."

"News to me," Todd mutters.

"And that sort of attitude is precisely why you haven't been promoted, and which we'll be discussing at a performance review in – "

The agency spins around them; winks out; stretches into something entirely new.

" – a biannual setting." Dirk blinks, wiggling his mouth as if carrying a sentence across some sort of physical anomaly has made it go a bit funny.

Todd would love to carry on with what that potential argument. However, he figures the sudden sensation of water soaking right through his shoes is slightly more important.

" _Fuck/_ " he says instead, with real feeling, as he wades out of the stream into the relative shelter of some trees. From the mud squelching underfoot, maybe he should have just stuck with the water. “Fuck.” He tries scraping it against the nearest tree root, massive and arching out of the ground. Now there’s a muddier tree root and a shoe which is no less muddy. “ _Fuckwhen_ we are, that would be helpful too. I assume this is the past? Unless of course technology has failed and we've returned to rural society, I've heard that can happen. Could happen. Will happen?" He turns to Todd. "Remind me to ask Farah about time-travel tenses. I think it might be necessary."

As much as Todd would love to make some sarcastic demand of why Dirk can't ask _him_ about temporal grammar, he's still focused on the knife.

That knife is suddenly used to gesture at Dirk as casually as a pen. Todd just barely manages not to hiss like a cat. " **Youre friend ys full of wordes. Manie words and litel sense.** "

Todd blinks. And blinks again. "What?"

The man frowns, stepping back although not sheathing his knife in what would be a very friendly and welcome gesture. " **Doon ye speak english?** "

"'English'?" Todd asks. "Yes, we're English. I don't know what you're saying." Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s recognisable. He can kid himself that he might be able to understand it, in the same way he’ll hear one ‘hola’ and think he’s bilingual.

" **Parlez-vouse frankaise**?"

"What," Todd says again, this time adding, "the fuck."

"Shit," Dirk says in agreement, and then backpedals – in practice more like a car revving its tyres – into the mud when the man's entire face lights up (as well as a face can do that when still under a hood). 

" **Shit!** " the man declares. " **Some words we al knowe. Are ye men of the kyng?** "

Being something of an expert on darkening facial expressions if not at language, Todd very quickly says, "No!" and then repeats this several times, shaking his head. Dirk follows suit, or has the same idea, it doesn't matter. 

The man nods slowly. " **He does not liketh ydiots. He ys greedy and shamefil and not patient. Why did ye come this wey?** "

Todd narrows his eyes, fairly certain they're being insulted. Still, he tries to keep smiling and generally looking like the absolute minimum of trouble anybody could be. Possibly it comes off as more manic but that seems preferable to dangerous when you don't actually have any weapons, just someone who supposedly gets helped out by the universe when it suits the universe. 

" **Howe came ye by these clothes?** " Dirk yelps as a gloved hand prods at his leg, whilst the knife waves somewhere in the vicinity of Todd's shirt. " **Doon ye hail from a different place? Another tyme?** " The man scoffs, straightening up and _finally_ putting the knife away. " **Howe manie more travellers? We are still tidyyng up after the last oon. Verray ynsultyng to oure band, and verray concerned with skyn. Worse than that of last week, who wolde not cease with that terrible ballad.** " And he 'sings' something, in that he makes several noises which go up and down what you could sort of call a scale. Todd winces at the unmistakeable sound of someone making fun of a song.

He's also fairly certain that he shouldn't recognise something sung by a crazed man in a forest in the past. "Is that...Bryan Adams?"

" **Everythyng I doon, I doon it for yow,** " the man says, and bodily shudders. " **Eek I doon not laugh by jerkyng my head liketh a chicken, and I doon not knowe what an accent ys. I doon not knowe this 'Robyn Hood' but he sound liketh a pestilence on the kyngdom.** "

"Wait," Todd says. "Did you – Did you just say 'Robin Hood'?"

"He doesn't look like a fox," Dirk mutters.

"Dirk, that was one film."

"Still." Dirk sniffs. "Where's his bow? That's just a knife. And you said that he had his own agency – "

"It's more like a gang," Todd interrupts, "and I'm really not an expert. And he's fictional."

"Then why is _this_ man talking about him?" Dirk turns back to the man, who is just standing watching them with a very vague smile as if he's decided this is all a very interesting dream. "Ou is Little John-eth? Er - Maid...eth Marienne?" 

"I don't think you just add 'eth' to the end of everything."

"Well, at least I'm trying – "

" **Oh thank God,** " the man says, " **peace agayn.** "

Sure enough, the earth moves underneath them, more than just slippery mud, stretching out and up into the sky. Todd can't say he's sorry to see the forest go.

\---

"Robin Hood."

"Yes."

"Robin. Hood."

"Again, yes."

Farah's mouth pulls as tight as an elastic band in the exact moment before it snaps. Todd doesn't want to know what happens next.

\---

They get a break after that, in the unofficial agency definition of the word 'break' where they get a whole day between bullshit universe events. (That's also their own definition of 'day', which is more to do with whether you get to sleep and eat at least one meal than any actual measurements of hours. Dirk's attitude towards the passing of time is part-absentmindedness and part-institutional-trauma.) Todd even risks a shower after the first couple of hours pass and the wafts of time-travelled shit start to get to him, not to mention Dirk having already showered and looking so fucking pink and pleased with himself.

Farah has a timer going on her phone, because Farah thinks of practical things like that. She also thinks of researching the periods they've been to so far, which is less helpful than she presumably thinks. Call him crazy (he does), but Todd feels like they don't need so much historical knowledge as, well, time-travel knowledge. Obviously he's seen all the _Back to the Future_ s, he's a breathing human being who's never been captured for study by a shady extra-governmental agency, except they haven't so much as seen a DeLorean, let alone whatever the fuck a flux capacitor is.

"The grasp of physics in those movies left so much to be desired," Farah says. From where he's leaning against the wall (close enough to Dirk to grab him in the event of time travel), Todd can see her computer screen and he really hopes this is just one of those Wikipedia black holes. Alternatively Farah genuinely thinks they need to know about the construction of Roman roads, which means they'll die instantly because there's no way Todd will learn that. Pretty much all his brain these days focuses on Dirk – to keep him safe, obviously.

"Isn't time travel already kind of fucked up from a whole physics standpoint?" Todd asks, before remembering something more pertinent. "What's so physically possible about creating a pocket universe?" Or shapeshifting, only Todd's hardly going to yell out that doesn't make sense when Mona is always potentially within earshot and gets very pouty very easily.

His heart sinks a little when Dirk frowns, resignation making him think that now the universe is handing out telepathy like candy. The actual reason is better, if only just. "Do you think this is Blackwing, then?"

Todd exchanges a glance with Farah, really hoping Dirk either doesn't notice (unlikely) or just accepts it (not fun). As much as it should be a good thing that Dirk will talk about Blackwing – or at least say its name – that doesn't make it any easier to hear the slump in his voice or see the slump in his shoulders.

"I mean," Todd says, shrugging in hopeless defence, "it's either Blackwing or some other craziness. It's possible – although," he goes on, speeding up a bit as Dirk curls into a question mark with every indication of carrying on into a lower-case n, "you never know, last time it was a soul-swapping infinite energy machine so maybe this time, maybe, there's a – a microwave making time jumps!" He stops. Dirk looks less depressed – positive development except for how he’s now staring at him, alongside waves of confused 'how is this helping' and 'do I need to call someone' coming from Farah. (Farah's expressions aren't nearly as talkative as Dirk's. Nobody else's are.)

"'A microwave'," Farah echoes.

"Or a DeLorean, we haven't actually ruled that out."

Dirk nods slowly, taking Todd by the arm and moving him carefully over to the couch. At least, Todd assumes that 'carefully' is the intention, since Dirk has adopted that over-sympathetic face which makes him look like he has wind. It's very patronising and from anyone else Todd would have started hurling punches a while ago. "As much as I appreciate the enthusiasm, Todd," Dirk is saying, with exaggerated smoothness that's just wrong when usually he stops and starts as the path of the universe takes him, "we should possibly focus on the probable. Like detectives."

"I can't believe you just said that. You."

"I just think it would be best if we don't immediately jump to assumptions that everything is some sort of convoluted supernatural event."

Looking around himself, Todd demands, "Are you Mona?"

"Todd – "

"Who the fuck are you?"

Todd lunges for him, not necessarily to actually do anything violent but try to convey that violence _might_ happen if Dirk doesn't stop acting so weird. Unfortunately, sometimes the universe isn't subtle about having a laugh at Todd's expense. As his hands fist around the lapels of Dirk's jacket, the world tips and slides away. The effect is so much worse like this, with them already leaning and so now falling.

They keep on falling, right up until they splash into the pool.

\---

Turns out, Romans like baths. They have lots of rooms for baths – according to Farah they're lucky they didn't plunge into the 'frigidarium'. Sure. _Lucky_.

What Romans do not like in their baths is clothing. The travel doesn't affect Todd and Dirk's clothes – a gesture of a kindness Todd didn't think the universe was capable of. Still, even when you're wearing (very wet) clothes, the absence of clothes on anyone else is enough to ruin your day. Or Todd's day, at any rate. Todd, who, in his attempt at helping Farah out with research, had learnt a lot about Roman attitudes towards multiple sexualities and orgies and so couldn’t think of anything else as he stood there, sodden, with Dirk still in his grip and his eyes frantically trying to look _anywhere else_.

It isn't that Todd has never seen another guy's...sword. It's just that he didn’t expect to get confronted by that many of them in one go.

The fact that Dirk actually dares to call him a prude – "I have to say, Todd," Todd mimics in a mockery which actually sounds way more accurate than when he's trying to impersonate Dirk in a supportive way, "you're reacting to this rather more prudishly than I expected – _asshole_ " – the fact that Dirk _goes there_ like this is _normal_ , is why Todd is drinking in a bar the likes of which he hasn't been in since, well, he caught the tendency to say 'the likes of which'. Dirk has ruined his brain. First he ruined Todd for anyone else, and then he ruined the rest of Todd's brain, the bits which might have functioned as a person in everyday society even if it was to the backing music of sweeping violins.

Vodka used to be so much better for this shit.

Sure, he'll go back to the agency soon enough. As much as he really doesn't want to, the idea of Dirk unleashed somewhere in the past doesn't bear much thinking about. Especially if some time he just...never comes back. If they don't know what's causing it, then there's no reason to expect it to always work out. That just makes sense.

"If you say so, buddy," the bartender tells him, and places a glass of water just to the side as if Todd's stupid. Which, maybe, but not that kind of stupid. Drunk stupid and crush stupid and a bit of time-travel-fuckery stupid and... He doesn't know where that was going.

Shit, must have been longer than he thought since he tried drinking like this. What the fuck happened to all of that 'drinking like rockstars' stamina? Feels like the room's spinning around him. Like the stool's rocking back. Like he's falling, which would be dumb, and weirdly familiar, and – 

\---

– and that's not the cold sticky unfeeling floor of a dive bar, no, that's water. Lots of water.

"Fuck you, Bob," Todd says, fairly certain that was the bartender's name, only it doesn't matter whether he got it right or not since all that comes out is bubbles and a kind of gargled 'glarbuldah' which doesn't seem likely to be anyone's name unless Todd bought a lot of shots from an alien without noticing. His brain decides to fixate on this (is it a case? couldn't he have gotten better booze from an alien?) rather than the drowning thing, mostly because Todd can't actually swim that great and panicked flailing turns out not to require any sort of complicated thought processes.

Mercifully, those thought processes do smash into the proverbial concrete wall as (extremely muscular) arms wrap around his chest. Even more mercifully, Todd finds himself suddenly moving upwards, out into the fresh air. Or the air, at least. Best not to turn your nose up at oxygen, the way his life keeps going.

When his entire body gets lifted straight out of the water, Todd stops feeling grateful (very easy, for him) and starts getting pretty mad, handed over to another set of (seriously muscular, what the fuck) arms like a sack of potatoes or virgin in a silent movie. "Hey! Put me down, asshole!" In a fairly standard Todd Brotzman development, this results in him getting dumped back in the water, fortunately scooped up again before he can inhale more than half a lung of liquid. After that, he figures he can stick to choking long enough to try to get his bearings.

That's the sea. He can tell that, from the salt choking him like he's gargled a mistake on a dare as well as the fact that the water just keeps on going, with waves and shit. It's noisy too, and windy. Todd lives in Seattle, he knows what the sea is, he's just really struggling with why the sea is _here_.

And then he's dumped on the deck of a boat. A _boat_. Or a ship, maybe, there are a lot of things that he's not but a sailor is still pretty high up the list. He can definitely see a sail, either way, behind the wall of men with intimidating facial hair staring down at him. For the most part they're laughing, although Todd is paranoid enough to notice the one or two opting to just glare at him.

" **Hvere er þinn skip**?" someone demands gruffly – who, he has no idea, it's like he's hypnotised by the unending sea of moustaches and beards and just a lot of hair really. Metal isn't generally his thing, more Amanda's. He's not sure how to talk to these guys, and it's actually a reassurance to realise that he doesn't have to. That is, before he remembers quite forcefully that that leaves him alone on a boat with a whole bunch of men who could beat him to a pulp or just throw him overboard.

"Er," he says, eloquently.

A finger jabs at his shoulder, and when he flails around to object, the sleeve of his shirt gets caught between pointer finger and thumb as carefully as a thread despite the fact that the digits in question look more like sausages that work out. " **Annarr einn,** " a different, equally gruff voice says, more dismissively. Todd gets the swamping sensation of déjà vu, the horror of realising that this feels like the Rowdies have got him.

" **Annarr einn!** " a man near the back of the horde repeats, calling across the ship's floor (Todd only knows about two words to do with sailing, and way more about not getting people with muscles and axes angry about doing down their choice of sailing vehicle). Something's shouted back from the pointy end (seriously, sailing, _not a thing for Todd_ ), and ridiculously, crazily, _wonderfully_ , Todd also hears a squawk of, "Do you _mind_?"

"Dirk?!" he yells, in the tone Dirk inspires which fully embraces the necessity of the interrobang.

"Todd?" Dirk responds, rather insultingly just sticking to a question mark.

"You could at least be surprised," Todd complains, as Dirk appears amidst the large burly men as some sort of inverse projection.

"Oh, I am," Dirk says, helping him up (or rather reaching down and thus encouraging Todd to stand up on his own before anybody could comment). "It's just that you're more of the pleasant sort of surprise, as opposed to some of the more uncouth surprises I've encountered." He turns and smiles at one of the sailors, who lifts his helmet with an oddly soft smile. "Although obviously Ragnar is lovely, and you should meet Sven as well – "

"Do – " Todd blinks a few times, once again trying to assess the universe's pet interests " – Do you understand what they're saying?"

"Not in the slightest." Despite this being unhelpful for their general situation, Todd still finds himself comforted. "But we've been doing a bit of pointing and making of acquaintances while the others were fishing you out – not that I knew it was you, obviously," Dirk goes on, showing a remarkable sensitivity for either Todd's feelings or the effects of the usual interruptions to his monologues. "I have to say, I am enjoying the change of scenery."

"There's no scenery, it's just sea," Todd says. "And aren't you just a little bit worried we jumped again?"

"Well, I was concerned about the Vikings, but so far nobody's tried to pillage me or make me do rowing, so they've definitely gone up in my estimations."

"Vikings?" Okay, so the facial hair and general metal fan vibe checked out, but "Aren't their helmets supposed to have horns?" Instantly he regrets this question as Dirk turns and starts miming two bananas coming out of his head and 'Ragnar' and his friends start getting decidedly not PG-rated expressions. "Okay, Vikings, sure, great."

Dirk at least stops with the motions, although he leaves his hands like he's pretending to be a moose. "Didn't you see the figurehead? It's a dragon, Todd."

"Sure I did," Todd says, with all the confidence not earned by only just remembering what a figurehead even is. "The helmets just...threw me off."

"Quite understandable." Todd is tempted to ask how that's understandable, given he's bullshitting and as an experienced bullshitter he can tell when his bullshit is not up to the task. Best to let it slide, though. "Where were you, by the way?" Dirk sniffs at the air, although Todd can't imagine he's getting anything other than seawater and sweaty men. Which might lead to some very wrong conclusions.

"Went to get a drink," Todd says, leaving out the gay/bi/questioning panic and the pluralisation. Instead, he remembers something unrelated to ships yet far more potentially helpful. "If they don't have the hats, do they still have the beer?"

It's not beer, as it turns out. Somehow, Todd doesn't care.

\---

Nursing the mother of all hangovers, Todd does not want to try to comprehend time travel. He can't do it sober, and maybe he can do it drunk but to find that out he'd have to get drunk again and Farah doesn't seem likely to allow that to happen any time soon.

"How. Did. You. Get. Here," she grinds out through her teeth. Todd is plenty afraid of her, don't get him wrong, it's just that he doesn't know how to answer the question without making her angrier.

"I don't know," he groans to the glass of water in front of him. It ripples, because Mona has weird ideas about how to help. Slowly, keeping his eyes on her, he reaches out for the second glass with the post-it saying:

'NOT MONA

NOT A TRAP

DRINK WATER'.

"How can you not know?"

"Really easily." Drinking water is hard and gross. Todd has no idea why anyone ever does it. "I was drinking in a bar, and then I was drinking on a boat, and then I was drunk here."

"Which is not the point you left from," Farah says, as if Todd doesn't know that. Fair enough if she thinks he's an idiot, obviously. "Todd, if it's grabbing both of you even when you're not together, that's an unnecessary complication, which means that it has to be necessary."

Todd tries to think through the throbbing. "What?"

"Y'r ness'ry," Dirk's voice slurs from somewhere in the vicinity of the couch. Prior to all this (there goes the Dirk voice again), Todd had assumed that the universe, lab experiments, general perfection, or some combination of all three meant that Dirk didn't get hangovers. It turns out, they’ve just never tried mead. Now Dirk is an even floppier and more useless overcooked noodle of a human being than usual, which is probably also Todd's fault. "'S' g'd T'dd." He pauses dramatically, even in pain. "Why ligh'urt?"

Farah looks at Todd. Todd looks at Farah.

"Just because I understand that, doesn't mean I can do all the historical stuff," Todd says. It seems unfair and unhelpful. There's no 'but' to that, it's just an observation. "Does nobody speak English in the past?"

"Modern English?" Farah asks. "As in... _modern_ English?"

"The movies make it look so easy."

"Because the kind of movies which try to portray historically accurate languages and the inevitable barriers to time travel that would ensue are not the kind of movies which become popular blockbusters," Farah explains. "Besides, Americans hate subtitles."

"You're American." Farah watches French films in black and white and Asian films which might as well be in shades of red. Apparently Tina already knew about the latter and is coming around to the former because everybody is 'super hot' and 'super into each other'.

"I'm an exception. I've been told that a lot." Incredibly, she doesn't specify 'a lot a lot' and Todd feels a welling of pride. Or maybe he's not done with the bathroom yet.

"V'r ness'ry," Dirk repeats, louder and somehow more slurred than before.

"Right," Farah says, as if that's actual words (and Todd knows that they're actual words, that doesn't mean they deserve to be acknowledged as actual words). "We still have a question as to why you both still ended up in the same place over there. Presumably you returned here together because you were together in the past – although that doesn't make a whole lot of sense." She taps her fingers together briefly, then quickly crams them into her jacket pockets. "So far the only cases of movement in location have been in the places where you're arriving. You always return to the exact place you departed – so why change the rules now?"

"And why the Vikings?" Todd asks. When Farah narrows her eyes, he hunches over and mutters, "I thought we were doing the list of questions thing."

"I'm listing the questions," Farah tells him. "And for your information, I'm filing the Vikings specifically with all the other choices of time period the two of you have ended up in." She sighs. "This would be so much easier if I could go along with you."

"What do you think we're not telling you?"

"It's not that I don't think you're telling me everything," Farah says, which is honestly really nice when you have a history of lying as long and detailed as Todd, "it's just that it's pretty frustrating to purely rely on second-hand information. There might be some clue to what's going on and you just don't recognise it." Even without the compliment (the one that really shouldn't be a compliment, Todd embodies low standards in that way and a whole lot of other ways too), Todd can't get mad about that. Like, maybe he would have when they first met, or if he heard it from someone else, but the simple fact is that Farah is just _that_ competent. He doesn't doubt for a second that if she ended up on a ship with literal drunken sailors or in a mysterious forest she'd find the exact detail Dirk would need to start making all the right connections.

"Besides," Farah is saying, "it really would be incredible to see some of those places. I mean, ancient Egypt? When I was younger I would have _killed_ to see that."

Somehow Todd doubts she means it with the same kind of hyperbole as most people when they say stuff like that. "Is there some reason you can't come along, though? Isn't it worth trying?"

As much as Todd can tell Farah’s going to say it's not possible – it's there in the crossed arms and the frown and that sort of side-flick of her eyes because Farah just hates saying no to people – she does hesitate a little. She doesn't bite her lip so much as graze it with the tip of her teeth. "It doesn't seem like it works that way, Todd," she says slowly, like she's thinking through the exact argument as she talks. Either that or she's trying to find a way around it. "I thought that maybe it was a proximity thing, but then it grabbed you from...wherever you were." That hesitation doesn't sound quite right. The thought briefly occurs to Todd that Farah might have bugged him, which is quickly drowned out by the realisation that he doesn't care if she has. Who the fuck even is he anymore?

"Todd?"

"Hmm?" Todd says, maybe. He makes some kind of noise, although it could be anything from 'wrzkl?' through to 'fbrlp?'. Point is, he responds.

At least Farah isn't one of those people who clicks their fingers in your face when they're trying to get your attention. Even at the heights of his asshole-ness, Todd didn't enjoy doing that. "I'll work on some more theories, see if I can find out anything about when you disappeared. Maybe you and Dirk should just...watch some TV or something."

"You're letting us watch TV?" Maybe it isn't Todd who's been swapped out.

"I'm suggesting you do something to stop Dirk making that noise." Now that Todd focuses, he can hear Dirk vocalising something that's part-groan and part-death-rattle. "I just figured you'd prefer to have the TV on at the same time."

Well, she isn't exactly wrong about that. Almost as soon as Todd's ass touches the couch cushions, he gets a lap-and-arm-and-shoulder-and-hair-ful of Dirk. Dirk is wrapping himself around Todd in ways that Todd has never experienced before. Todd has had long-term sex partners (ie. more than a week) who haven't managed to get this close to him. He pointedly moves Dirk's hand further down his leg, closer to his knee. If the first thing on the TV is a nature documentary, he's out of here.

It takes a few goes – no nature documentaries but every rerun is Valentine’s-themed for some reason – and it's super distracting with Dirk practically purring on his shoulder, like all Dirk needed to stop hurting is having Todd as a cuddly toy. Still, eventually Todd hits on a western and figures that’ll do. Nothing fancy – not even a John Wayne, Todd didn't even know you got westerns without Clint Eastwood that also didn't have John Wayne in them – just that sort of half-washed out colour which probably looked great in the fifties but now looks like the kind of movie you watch when you're hungover in the morning. Some guys are shooting at each other, there's no time travel or pocket dimensions: this seems doable.

He doesn't know how long they sit there – at least three shoot-outs and one completely unnecessary song, he reckons. That's not what matters. What matters is when the couch suddenly vanishes, and they find themselves sprawled out under a blue sky with grass and sand and far-off rocks that look carved out of a film set.

\---

Todd stares up at the sky – very big, very blue, very much not their ceiling – and really hopes this isn't going to go the way he thinks this is going to go.

Dirk props himself up on his arms, squinting around them. "This is not the agency."

"No, it's not," Todd says, dusting himself down because somehow despite only just getting dropped in here he is already covered in dust. Todd isn't a history guy – he already knew that, he didn't need the fuckery of the last few days to prove it – but he does live in America. He's been on road trips and tours and all that. Unfortunately, working out that they must be in America doesn't make him feel as good as it might have done before. There's this sort of bone-deep weariness of 'not this shit again' (another thing he's picked up from Dirk, if you're keeping count: extensive use of the word 'shit'). Maybe this time nobody will flirt with Dirk (besides Todd) (what?). For novelty, if nothing else.

Shit (shit), it's very distracting seeing the sun in Dirk's hair like that. Obviously Todd's seen Dirk outside before, only now it's proper sun. None of that weak Seattle light that filters through the clouds when it can be bothered. He's never much thought of Dirk as having red hair and yet here he is, suddenly unable to look away from all those coppery strands. And thinking words like 'coppery strands'. Maybe this isn't a time travel thing; maybe this time they're trapped in a romance novel. And not one of the good ones.

"Todd?"

Todd blinks, shaking his head like that will somehow wave off the phrase 'coppery strands' he can imagine floating around him like stink lines. "Yeah?"

"Where are we?"

Ah, right. For once, Todd might be able to offer something on that front. "I’m not sure which state – midwest, maybe, bit to the south since I can't see cornfields but we might just be in the wrong bit. Or we're not in cornfield times, although I'm pretty certain that's been a sort of constant thing. Maybe." Fuck, he hopes it's not the midwest. The biggest compliment he can give to Bergsberg is that it makes the midwest vaguely tolerable.

Dirk frowns. "So that would be...America?"

"Yeah." Todd would never say that he's capable of 'lighting up' – that's Dirk's thing, even without the Everbulb – but he does feel decidedly less gloomy suddenly. "They'll speak English!"

"If you can call it that," Dirk mutters.

"Pardon?"

"Yes, they might!" And Dirk gives him a thumbs-up as if that makes everything okay. It doesn't stop the retort itching just behind Todd's lips that Dirk isn't English either and this sort of top-hole performative Englishness is a bit weird when you think about it for someone who can also apparently answer to the name 'Svlad'. Todd lets none of it out, mostly because with every single awful word unrolling inside his head he feels like more and more of the asshole he can't seem to stop being. Keeping that asshole inside: that's step one. As far as there are steps to this thing and not just 'the rest of your life'.

\---

Nobody appears. This should be a good thing, based on some of their other 'encounters'. It's just the two of them, together, and as annoying as Dirk is capable of being Todd wouldn't want to be stranded in history with anyone else.

"I'm glad I'm stuck with you, Todd," Dirk says, out of nowhere.

"I'd rather not be stuck anywhere," Todd says, entirely truthfully in a very specific sense.

Dirk nods, and Todd can feel him doing that sort of sway just behind him, like it's possible to just sense your personal space getting eaten away. In a good way.

"We really need to find water," Todd says, the way Todd keeps saying every time he thinks something abstract along the lines of 'it's hot' or 'I'm thirsty' or 'hey universe we're still hungover'. Even the potentially-Mona-water seems appealing right now.

"Probably." Dirk sounds distracted, which is really just another way of saying he sounds like Dirk. Still, Todd does look round at him, to see that's he's got that distant frowning thinking face that either means this will all be over soon or they're only just getting started.

Warily, Todd asks, "What is it?"

"Why are we here, Todd?"

Todd used to scream that question into a microphone, thinking it was such a deep lyric and he was a genius trapped with little people. As a result, any time he hears it these days he doesn't end up on some philosophical acid trip, he just thinks about what an asshole he is, or was, or is trying not to be. Very awkward when their Uber gets distracted by the universe and Todd just has to speed-up his self-loathing in the moment.

"Why not?" Not that Todd expects a decent answer there. Somehow it feels better when he adds background noise, like it's helping Dirk's thoughts along or something.

"Every other time, we've known exactly where we are. We've said 'Egypt' or 'Rome' or 'Vikings', sooner or later."

"Or Robin Hood," Todd agrees.

"Yes..." Dirk's frown deepens. His hands are moving from point to point in mid-air, and Todd knows there's no point in trying to follow them or read anything into it at all. It's like watching someone do tarot readings – even when they're bullshitting, you don't actually know what they're thinking. "That's – Robin Hood is rather specific, isn't he?"

"I'm not actually sure that guy was Robin Hood," Todd says, remembering how annoyed he'd sounded about the whole thing. You didn't need any translating to get that part. "It was more like he was complaining about him – or people talking about him?" He can feel his own frown coming on now, both of them coming to a halt in their walk to nowhere in particular. "Dirk? How did he know Bryan Adams?"

"I don't know who that is," Dirk tells him, "but from the way you're saying the name it sounds like he's not normally the topic of conversation in forests."

"He did this song," a song Todd will never get out of his head again, _fuck_ , why did he have to remind himself about that, "it's – honestly, it sucks, but I guess people in the nineties had no taste and thought Kevin Costner was good looking." He pauses for breath and instantly regrets it when Dirk starts to open his mouth. "Not important. Dirk, that's all from a film _about_ Robin Hood. Nobody – " He stops short.

Dirk's fingers are flicking again, this time pointing the air and getting moved from side to side like they’re dancing. "If you were from that moment in history, you wouldn't know how people are _going_ to talk about it." He squints slightly, wincing, then apparently decides he can handle those tenses and carries on. "Todd, with the Vikings, you said about their helmets."

"We never learned about Vikings," Todd grumbles, feeling the need to stand up for himself here. "We did Rome, sort of, and Egypt's obvious, but I just know them from films and shit."

"Like Robin Hood," Dirk says, nodding slowly. "And westerns."

"There aren't Vikings in..." Todd trails off. He looks around him; thinks again how much the landscape looks like a film set. They're not on a film set, obviously, but Todd's an American and his dad is American and between the culture and his dad he's seen more than enough westerns to know that a whole bunch of them are filmed around the same area. That's just what some bits of the states look like. "You think this is supposed to be a western?"

"I think it's supposed to be that time," Dirk says, working his way through the sentence, "only there aren't men on horses with guns here. At the moment. In _this_ moment."

"Why send someone back in time to when nothing is happening?"

"They might not mean to." Dirk starts clicking his fingers, pacing around. Todd watches him go. "Suppose – Suppose you could send people through time. Like Project Moloch – Francis. You'd have to know where to send them, wouldn't you? Only people aren't always good at history, because there are films. There are just certain times everyone knows – like Egypt," he says, stopping abruptly as if to act as his own punctuation, "or Rome. Even I know about those. It holds up, mostly – except for something where you don't have specifics. It's too vague. Westerns aren't history."

"I mean," Todd says, sensing his dad's fanaticism across actual time and space, "you've got the Alamo, and." He stops himself. "Okay, so they're mostly not." Not that Todd knows when most of them are even set. They're just...westerns. That's not what they're _for_.

Film analysis isn't what matters here, though. "Dirk?" Todd smiles encouragingly. "You solved the case, then?" Okay, so his voice goes way too high at the end. Sometimes he figures optimism might work out for him, just this once.

"Well, no, obviously," Dirk says, and Todd can't even be disappointed. "We’ve identified the case. We don't know who's throwing us through time, or how, or why they're grabbing us when we're in completely different places, or why they're choosing us at all, or whether this will stop one day, or – "

"Dirk, Dirk, hey!" Todd grabs him by the arms, as if that could honestly contain Dirk when he gets like this. "It's fine. We know we have a case now. We're gonna be fine." He pauses. "Right?”

Dirk does nod, even if he doesn't look like he believes it for a second. "Right. We'll be fine."

Then Todd finds himself enveloped in one of those full-body hugs Dirk specialises in.

"I'm so glad you're here, Todd."

Todd might never be what you'd call a 'hugger'. Still, they're in the middle of nowhere, and Dirk does deserve nice things.

"Same, I guess."

\---

They officially have a case, even if it’s more them hiring themselves for now. Mona is living her life as a tie with clocks on it, and Farah is investigating whether any particular TV schedules match up with the time jumps. They'll figure this out.

When Todd is entangled in a toga yet again, and actually recognises the guy flirting with Dirk, this time he lets the punch fly. If a guy in Sherwood Forest can know about awful pop ballads, then a Roman asshole can lose a fight with a twenty-first century recovering asshole.

Even if 'salve _this_ , fucker' isn't exactly one for the history books.


End file.
